“What are you playing at, anyway?” Kekdela had three books open in front of her but she was drawing doodles of goat horns in her notebook. “You know this really could get you expelled. It could get everyone expelled. Me and Tesdes included.”

Tesdes looked up at the mention of his name. “What?”

Riensin shook his head. “Nobody’s getting expelled. They might consider it, but Edally has a reputation to uphold. There is nothing in the school’s reputation about kicking out students for being noncompliant with propaganda–”

“There wouldn’t be, though, would there?” Tesdes closed the book he’d been taking notes from. His teammates fell quiet. “Because if students are going against the line the school wants to maintain, then nobody would talk about it. Certainly not the school.”

“And the students that were kicked out?” Riensin hated to contradict Tesdes when he talked so rarely. But in this case… “You can’t think they’d all stay quiet.”

Kekdela shook her head. “No, but people who get kicked out of good schools say all sorts of things, because they’re angry. They want to make themselves look better in order to get into any sort of secondary school, or they just want to make the school look bad.”

Riensin sighed. “They are not going to expel us. They are not going to expel any of us. They’re just not.”

“That’s not what you were saying earlier.” Kekdela leaned over the table. “Were you trying to make the whole thing sound more dangerous, Mister ‘oh, let’s go against the angriest Instructor in the school’? Were you trying to make yourself seem more sad and waifish for some reason? Maybe garner some pity? Mister ‘oh, I’m the spare twin anyway, woe is me, I can sacrifice myself and it won’t matter?’”

He leaned back in his chair and glared at her. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Look, we’ve done a few things together. No goats on the rooftop, but hey, your schemes are usually fun. This one isn’t fun, it’s work, and it’s going to get us all in trouble.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “I don’t want to get expelled because of your silly crush on Princess Enrie.”

“…she’s not a Princess.” And she’s not the one I want. Riensin sighed. “It’s a little late to stop now.”

“I just want to be clear.” Kekdela leaned back in her chair. “Priorities. There might be someone I want to take down to the beach eventually, you know.”

Riensin barked out a startled laugh. “All right. Priorities.” If that was what it took to get Kekdela on board.